


Going For It

by frozensea



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Awkward Flirting, Dancing in the Rain, F/F, Getting Together, Kissing in the Rain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:20:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23517559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frozensea/pseuds/frozensea
Summary: Rey's eyes lit up and she nodded enthusiastically. "Food is good." Then she blushed which did funny things to Rose's stomach again.
Relationships: Rey/Rose Tico
Comments: 4
Kudos: 25
Collections: Party in the GFFA: Star Wars Flash Exchange 2020





	Going For It

**Author's Note:**

  * For [saiditallbefore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/saiditallbefore/gifts).



Rose ducked under the awning of a street vendor's cart to escape the rain. Within minutes the drizzle of the morning had turned into a downpour which drained the busy marketplace of most of its colors, though it didn't deter shoppers from their pursuit of food and wares. The scent of spicy meat wafted towards Rose as she listened to a trio of Rylothian singers across the narrow aisle which were drawing a sizable crowd.

She adjusted the strap of her satchel and let her gaze drift over the crowd. She and Rey had agreed to meet back at the Falcon, but Rose had found the spare parts she needed to repair the ship's plasma cannons faster than she'd anticipated.

_ Enough time left to grab a snack _ , she thought as she patted her rumbling stomach. 

She'd skipped breakfast.  _ Because I'd been running late _ , she told herself. It didn't have anything to do with the way her stomach had done a weird little swoop and dive when Poe had told her that Rey would accompany her on her supply run. It also didn't have anything to with her fidgeting throughout the entire flight and trying to hide how nervous she was. 

After all, it was perfectly rational to be nervous. Every one of them was wanted by the First Order. There might be stormtroopers patrolling the town, informants and undercover agents lurking in dark corners...

_ Knock it off. Rey would kick their ass without breaking a sweat. And it's not as if you don't know how to use a blaster.  _

Instinctively, her hand went to the holster at her hip, though touching the cool metal was not as reassuring as she'd hoped it would be.

Being on the right side of a war was all well and good, and it wasn't as if she'd never killed before, but the fact remained that she'd rather avoid doing it. 

_ Maybe Rey can just use that Jedi mind trick instead?  _ If  _ we run into danger. Which we haven't, yet. So stop fretting. And stop being so damn skittish when you're around Rey. You're a grown woman. Stop acting like a lovesick youth. _

A part of her was amused that she was telling herself to buckle up and do something about her growing feelings for Rey in the middle of a mission, but now that she'd started, it was impossible to stop.

_ Make a move, woman. Talk to her, or... or grab her and kiss her if you can't find the words. She'll either kiss you back or knock you flat, but either way, you'll have your answer. Be bold. Be brave. Be dar- _

"Oh, hey. There you are. Did you get everything you wanted?"

Rose felt as if a bucket of cold water had been dumped over her head.

"No. I mean yes. Everything. Good. Uhm...Hi?" Internally, she smacked herself upside the head.  _ This is great. This is  _ just  _ wonderful. _

Rey smiled at her, though her expression was a little nonplussed. "Everything okay?"

It was an effort to corral herself, but Rose did it by sheer force of will. "Yep. I got everything I needed." She patted her satchel. "I'm good to go. I was just thinking about giving those spicy meats on the skewer a try before we leave."

Rey's eyes lit up and she nodded enthusiastically. "Food is good." Then she blushed which did funny things to Rose's stomach again. 

"I mean I could eat," she corrected herself, which was when Rose realized that Rey had already sampled the market's food because faint traces of sugar clung to one corner of her mouth.

Rose had the absurd notion of leaning in and licking that sugar right off Rey's fa- 

"Yeahmetooletseat," she said breathlessly, turned around, and headed for the first market stall with a food selection. By the time she sank her teeth into the first juicy bite, she consoled herself with the fact that she could blame the flush in her cheeks on the spicy dish.

Next to her, Rey shot her another curious look before carefully sampling her own food. She closed her eyes as she savored the taste. 

Rose forgot to swallow.

"This is really good," Rey said with a pleased smile before her eyes went wide and she sucked in a sharp breath.

Rose snatched a bottle of thala-siren milk off the shelve and handed it to her. "Here, drink this. It'll soothe the burn." She quickly tossed a few credits at the vendor who was watching them along the line of his hooked nose.

"Has a bit of a kick, doesn't it?" he grinned. "Finest fire seed recipe in the Colonies. Mark my words. You won't find anything better. Lights a fire in your belly."

"That it does," Rey chocked out between her sputtering coughs. She took a small sip of the green milk then shifted it in her mouth from side to side before swallowing. "This is actually not too bad either. I can see why Luke liked it."

As always when Rey mentioned anything about the time she'd spent with Luke Skywalker, Rose's ears perked up. She wanted to ask a thousand questions about him and the Force and Rey's training with Leia, who was apparently a Jedi herself, not that she'd ever let anyone know about it. 

Or perhaps people had known about it, at least those Leia was close to. Rose was only a mechanic, one of many in the Resistance. There was no reason she would be privy to that kind of information. 

That was alright. Rose knew her strengths, and she liked being useful. Without mechanics like her keeping generators running and ships flight-worthy, the Resistance wouldn't get far. She was an important part of the puzzle, and she was proud of the work she did. The fact that her position within the Resistance put her towards the end of the information chain more often than not was a small annoyance with which she could live.

She declined the bottle when Rey offered it to her. "Nah, I'm good. I love spicy food. Probably burned my taste buds off long ago."

The ambled through the market and by the time they reached the landing decks where they'd parked the Falcon, Rey was licking the rest of the sauce off her fingers wich Rose tried very hard to ignore by chugging the skewers and empty bottle into a trash bin.

When she turned back to Rey, she found her abandoning the protection of the latest stall in the row and lifting her face into the rain.

"Hey," Rose laughed. "You'll get soaked."

Rey didn't respond, leaving Rose with little choice but to run up to her.

Rey's eyes were closed and a small smile curled the corners of her mouth.

_ She's so damn pretty,  _ she thought, but as she watched raindrops dripping off Rey's long lashes, she realized how inadequate that assessment was.

Rey was beautiful. So beautiful it sometimes hurt to look at her, because Rose knew that the heart beating inside Rey's chest was just as beautiful as her face, and if she was getting a little philosophical right now, then damn it, she was allowed to because it's not as if she was ever going to do anything about her kriffing, sodding feelings.

Rey was a Jedi, or training to be one at least, and even if those nebulous no-attachment rules Rose had heard about didn't apply, (They sounded stupid, the kind of basic denial of human nature that would cause more harm then good, but what did she know about the Force and what it cost those who wielded it?) why would someone as powerful and amazing as Rey ever see anything else in her but a friend?

_ Oh, great _ , she thought,  _ we're having one of those days. Confident one moment, insecure the next. _ She sighed. Such was life.

"I used to do this whenever the rain came," Rey said quietly as she spread her arms wide. "Rain on Jakku amounted to two weeks of nothing but sheets of water falling from the sky, followed by two days of scorching sun and humidity so high that you couldn't breathe without breaking into a sweat, and then the air would get dry again. But plants would grow in the shadow of my AT-AT. Small, sturdy weeds. The leaves were poisonous, but the roots kept me fed for a month, and there was enough water in the wells to drink your fill."

Her smile was tinged with sadness. "Every year, I tracked those clouds and tried to guess how long it would take them to get to the outpost. And then I'd just stand there right in the open and lift my face and feel the rain on my skin, taste it on my tongue. It was the best feeling."

Rose tried to imagine what it must have been like to grow up in the desert, foraging for engine parts, hoping that she'd found enough to trade for food, and realized that she couldn't.

Growing up on Hays Minor hadn't been an easy life. The mining colonies had been poor and the complaints about other planets haggling for lower prices and the New Republic not doing enough to protect her homeworld from raiders had been constant, even before the First Order had swooped in to make everything worse. But no matter how bad things got, Rose had always had enough food to fill her stomach, a warm bed to rest for the night, and above all, a family who loved her through arguments and childish squabbles and one very memorable bout of Hesken fever which she'd caught disassembling and reassembling her first hyper dive. 

Rose couldn't imagine how she'd have survived without knowing the support and love of her family, though she suspected she would have turned out far more jaded then Rey. Reluctant to trust. Probably quite a bit more...  _ vicious,  _ she thought uneasily when she remembered chomping down on the finger of that ginger First Order minion who had looked down at her as if she was a loathsome bug under a microscope.

"Paige and I used to dance in the rain," she offered trying to dispel her uneasy train of thought.

"You did?" The information seemed to delight Rey.

Ducking her head, Rose nodded. "We'd make a game out of it. See which one of us could get their clothes dirty faster." She blushed. _Oh, why had her brain decided to latch onto this morsel from her past?_ "We were really young."

"Will you teach me?"

"Will I- what?"

"The dance. Will you teach me how to do it?" Rey asked eagerly.

"Oh, no. I haven't done it in years. It was a silly thing really."

Rey nodded sagely. "Of course. Rain must be enjoyed with dignity."

It took Rose an embarrassingly long moment to realize Rey was teasing her. She huffed and gave her shoulder a light nudge. "Fine, I'll teach you, but don't complain to me when Poe and Finn dub you 'the muddy Jedi' when we get back."

Rey shrugged. "I've been called worse."

The question was at the tip of Rose tongue, but she swallowed it. Instead, she took a deep breath and steeled herself as if she was headed into battle. "Alright, watch me and don't you dare laugh."

It took them almost half an hour to make the ten-minute walk to the Falcon and by the time they got there, Rose was laughing so hard she was getting the hiccups. Beside her, Rey jumped into a deep puddle with both feet and dirty rainwater splashed up high enough to reach her waist. She hollered and grabbed Rose, drawing her into another dizzying round of twirls until Rose's head was spinning.

She gamely tried to find another puddle to jump into, but the dizziness was too much. She stumbled, her hand clenching around Rey's shirt. "Oh- hic- gods. I- hic- need to stop."

Rey's arms came up around her waist. "Close your eyes. It'll get better in a moment." Her voice was soft and her body was so warm, Rose melted against her with a sigh, too high on laughter to feel self-conscious. She couldn't stop giggling.

"I feel- hic- I feel a little drunk."

"Mmmh. I feel like that too when I'm around you."

It took an endless moment before Rey's words made sense inside her head. When her eyes snapped open it was to see Rey lean in to brush her lips softly against Rose's mouth.

Rose gaped at her. "I- what?"

To her surprise, Rey blushed. "Sorry. You just looked so pretty with the rain falling on your face."

"You think I'm pretty?" 

Rey's eyes lit up as if she were looking at a buffet of exotic dishes rather than Rose's face. It was hard not to blush under that kind of adoration. "You are beautiful, Rose. Inside and out. Everything about you is wondrous."

Heart jumping up into her throat, Rose tried to say something, anything, but her mind came up blank. "Oh," she eventually managed, calling on the supreme intelligence of her engineer's mind.

Uncertainty crept into Rey's eyes and her arms dropped... and that was wrong. Terribly, awfully, fundamentally wrong. Rey's arms  _ should be  _ around her waist. Rose decided at that moment that this is where they belonged and they should never, ever let go of her.

"Sorry," Rey said, "I read that wrong. I haven't done this much, and I didn-"

"No. No, it's okay. I was just- I didn't think... I mean, why would you- No, that's wrong, too. Confident. Bold.  _ Daring _ ." Rose straightened, pulling her shoulders back.

"Uhm- Rose?"

"I am sorry. I went about this all wrong. This is what I should have done," she said and then she went up on her toes, grabbed Rey by the front of her shirt, and kissed her until they were both breathless again and oh, did she love kissing Rey. Her heart hammered in her throat as she slipped her tongue inside Rey's mouth, tasting the spiciness that lingered on her tongue. 

_ Next time, I'm going to lick that off her fingers, too _ , she vowed quietly.  _ Because if I have anything to say about this, there will be a next time. In fact, there will be many. _

She dove back in to catch Rey's bottom lip between her own for one last parting nip, to which Rey reacted with a very satisficing hitch in her breath.

"There. That's better," then she fell back onto the insecure end of the confidence-insecurity seesaw. "Was it better?"

Rey chuckled. Her arms were back around Rose's waist and she drew her tighter against the strong line of her body. "It was good."

"Yeah?"

Rey looked at her with an intensity that was nothing short of smoldering. "Very good."

_ Score one for me _ , Rose thought.  _ Decisive. That's the way to go. _


End file.
